The big story last night was President Obama’s speech but it is already starting to be overshadowed by the big story this morning, a very disappointing jobs report. This election is still primarily about the state of the economy and the data is not good.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics nonfarm payroll rose by only 96,000 in August. This is lower than expected and well below the average monthly job growth in the past two years.

Democrats have been trying to sell Obama’s tenure on the economy by saying things are improving steadily but it just takes time to get out of the deep hole we are in. This jobs report though is more in line with an economy that has stalled rather than one that is growing. This level of job growth just barely keeps up with the population growth.

The one small political silver lining for Obama is that the official unemployment number dropped from 8.3 to 8.1 percent, but the reason it dropped is primarily because people are giving up on trying to find work. While having smaller headline numbers is better, even that will probably not provide much of a rhetorical benefit for Obama. Unemployment is still technically “above eight percent” and that is how Republicans will probably continue to refer to it.

Since they happened so close together it would be impossible to see in the polling data if this jobs report actually hurts Obama’s (potential) convention bounce, but I doubt anyone will dispute that it couldn’t have helped.

96,000 is the seasonally adjusted number. They always use the seasonally adjusted number. So too are many other economic numbers seasonally adjusted, and wrong.

The real number was 252,000. I kid you not. The number is right there in the BLS numbers but everyone reads the press release with the SA number at the top line, and they report it.

These numbers are very volatile and there are seasonal trends but the adjustments are a mess.

If I didn’t know better I would say the low, and wrong, recent numbers are a thumb on the scale to push the Fed to do more printing. (Even though the banks have $1.6 trillion dollars sitting at the Fed doing nothing. Which is why QE is highly unlikely now) I don’t think the BLS is skewing the numbers down for political purposes because that isn’t how the world works. It’s just people being stupid and institutional inertia.

I’ve been out of work for almost four years. My anniversary is first week in November, party hats all around. Who in the political class from the county level up is paying any attention? Their efforts are on subsidizing the bigs and finishing off the unions. (To which union “leaders” offer, at best, token resistance. Co-opted is probably too kind.)

It isn’t about jobs as much as jobs that actually pay average Americans a fair wage and significantly over the threshold of the poverty level, while the billionaire Wall Street types that typically have pols attention, (instead of the 99%) want the DNC to insert a plank about another country such as Israel instead of the shafted Americans.

Let’s be honest and candid, what American really gives a flying #$%k about Israel and Jerusalem, other than those with lots of money.

They might balance out if they don’t alter the adjustment calculations but assuming they don’t then at some point everyone will be all hot and bothered by numbers higher than the actual. To what purpose exactly?

The spread between the real and SA number is gigantic. Politicians and pundits are making all sorts of conclusions about a number which distorts the on the ground right real situation and so their conclusions are wrong.

Don’t get me wrong. There are millions less full time jobs than 4.5 years ago and when you consider population growth this is a disaster.

I did this analysis for 30 years. Talking head after #s came out on cable fin news.

You don’t know me, so don’t regard my opinion any better or worse than what you linked.

But you can look at the numbers for yourself where I linked, if you’re so inclined.

If you care, and no offense if you don’t, there is a talent to the analysis. It involves having a prior based on fundamentals, and a strong knowledge of the volatility of the monthly numbers, to either fit into one’s prior or knowing when to change it.

This is why I rarely comment on econ anymore.

Everybody has a strong opinion and few have the creds to back theirs up.

I would rather be right than wrong, but I would much rather know when to change my opinion when evidence proves I was wrong.

The entire political and market universe today revolved around that second number as does this thread.

Nobody was saying that the 252,000 number deserved to be made 96,000 because it will all even out by next August. Not only because most don’t know about the SA and any reasonable person would say if they knew about it, WTF. Well, except economists I suppose.

Yes, I think that also explains why the labor force has come down (which leads to a lower unemployment rate). People are retiring or just giving up and living on one paycheck per household. You can do that if one of you makes out ok. But what does a single person do?

I disagree with the assessment that he’s doing the best he can. As it stands he still doesn’t seem to get how to articulate the deficit matters less than creating jobs that can sustain a household even as the majority of the country has told him THAT should be his priority.